- “Did Plan B work?” – On England’s last day under Plan B restrictions, Ross Clark in the Spectator finds no significant differences in outcomes with other parts of the U.K. under harsher measures.
- “Some supermarkets will still ask shoppers to wear masks, despite Plan B Covid measures being lifted” – Masks are now a ‘matter of personal judgment’ but Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons and John Lewis will still ask customers to wear them, the Telegraph reports.
- “Why we have been failed by Covid lockdown modellers” – The Mail publishes MP Bob Seely’s searing takedown of the Covid modelling in the Westminster Hall debate last week.
- “London has lowest Covid case rate in country, but Sadiq Khan insists face masks must remain” – Business owners say requirement to cover up once Plan B measures end will make people fearful and damage the hospitality sector further, reports the Telegraph.
- “Two-thirds with Omicron say they have had Covid before” – The latest findings hint at how common reinfections might be and who is more likely to catch Covid again, reports the Telegraph – though the detail of the study has not been released so how reliable the findings are is unclear.
- “Who cares about partygate?” – Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator suspects some ulterior motives might be afoot among some of Boris’s political opponents.
- “As Plan B Covid measures are finally lifted, don’t expect an end to Government doom-mongering” – Why do the richest, most sophisticated societies in history seem unable to form legitimate governments on the basis of normalcy, asks Philip Cunliffe in the Telegraph.
- “The strange and deplorable case of the Gesundheit-II machine” – Hector Drummond examines some of the dubious methodology behind studies which find benefits in face masks.
- “Father-of-two, 31, has been taken off the heart transplant list” – D.J. Ferguson, 31, has been denied a heart transplant until he gets vaccinated against COVID-19. His wife is now saying that they are in a “corner” and are “pressured” to get him vaccinated, the Mail reports.
- “German lawmakers debate making vaccines mandatory for ALL adults” – German politicians long insisted that there would be no vaccine mandate. But the tide turned last year amid frustration that a large number of holdouts was ‘hampering’ the fight against COVID-19, reports the Mail.
- “As the economy goes down the pan(demic), toilet paper is NZ’s big worry” – New Zealand has run out of money – the Government has spent $64 billion dollars on the pandemic so far – before it has even arrived – and there is nothing left, writes Guy Hatchard in TCW Defending Freedom.
- “The horror: BBC hounded for inviting unvaccinated onto Question Time” – Once again, it is those who are screaming ‘shhhhh’ that are the loudest, writes Luke Perry in Bournbrook.
- “Macron’s vaccine culture war” – The inexplicable has become the commonplace in France, and vaccine passports are now wholly political, writes Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator.
- “Daily U.S. death toll from Covid now matches Delta” – The average number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. is roughly on par with that seen during the peak of the Delta variant, reports the BBC (and most of the deaths are in the most vaccinated states).
- “Ep 37. The rotting woodwork of the Covidian – The Real Normal Podcast” – Listen to the latest episode as the guys laugh at the media commentators suddenly U-turning against the Covid lockdowns after two years of cheering them on, plus a discussion of where you can go on holiday if you’re unvaccinated.
- “Will Australia survive Covid?” – Its pandemic incompetence was inevitable, argues Shahar Hameiri in UnHerd.
- “I’m pro-vaxx, but I’d happily be treated by an unjabbed nurse” – Michael Deacon in the Telegraph says a threat to punish NHS staff will end up punishing patients as well.
- “When Fauci Told the Truth about Masking” – Fauci knew masks didn’t work to prevent illnesses like Covid. He knew that the evidence on masks hadn’t changed because one of his top employees confirmed that there was no positive impact from masking based on the gold standard of scientific research, randomised controlled trials, writes Ian Miller at the Brownstone Institute.
- “Post-Covid truancy is everyone’s problem” – Skipping school is often the first step on a child’s trajectory to trouble, the outcome of which will affect the rest of society, writes Cristina Odone in the Telegraph.
- “Clapton speaks out: “I’m cut from the cloth where if you tell me I can’t do something, I really wanna know why I can’t do it”” – The guitarist offers his perspective in Music Radar on the recent controversies surrounding his stance on Covid measures – “What’s offending me now is I’m being insulted by the media”.
- “The SARS2 Pandemic: Will Truth Prevail?” – Watch Scott Atlas deliver a talk at the Academy for Science and Freedom.
- “The Covid Narrative Falls Apart in South Africa” – The sad, tragic fact is that their measures, from lockdowns to masks to even vaccine mandates, have done little to nothing to curb the spread of this highly contagious respiratory virus, and taken as a whole they’ve likely done more harm than good, writes Scott Morefield at the Brownstone Institute.
- “Good Housekeeping: Don’t Have Kids, Because Climate Change” – Gone are the days when Good Housekeeping just told readers how to make a baby bonnet or decorate a nursery, writes Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That?
- “Kate Clanchy: my life’s work has been taken away” – The writer is interviewed by UnHerd on her recent brutal cancellation after falling foul of modern woke sensibilities.
- “‘Woke capitalism’ could derail post-pandemic recovery, report warns ” – Companies should ditch ‘woke capitalism’ or risk derailing the UK’s post-pandemic recovery, a report by the Adam Smith Institute argues, reports the Mail.
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“New Zealand has run out of money”. (TCW).
Yes, I thought they might. I think they might run out of natural immunity too with their isolationism from the rest of the world (and with no end in sight). How long does it take for a population to start to see an effect similar to the native Americans who were famously vulnerable to European diseases?
“Saint” Jacinda – what an absolute nutter.
And let’s not forget how nuts. The UK had the worst excess deaths (if you believe in them) in 2020… since 2008 (and every year before then was worse). And 2021 had even lower mortality. Norway and Finland seemingly had relatively low mortality through high vitamin D levels (and less dry tinder). Belarus (who didn’t lock down) didn’t have significantly worse all cause mortality than their neighbours up to March 2021. And she is wrecking her country’s economy for this? Madness.
Will NZ run out of patience with their communist leader, though?
Hang it, I hope so. Same with this net zero business. I seem to remember a story about desperate war torn impoverished parts of the Ukraine where people were scratching coal out of open cast diggings in order to survive the Winter. I have a suspicion that when things get really bad, these fantasies will start to evaporate and people will do whatever it takes to survive. I don’t think the coal diggers in the Ukraine I refer to are too bothered about net zero.
New Zealand can’t run out of money. It has its own currency.
So did Zimbabwe
One hundred trillion? That must be worse than the Weimar Republic. And the Simpsons thought they were rich with a trillion dollar bill! Incidentally, Rhodesia (which my friend had to leave after independence) used to be the bread basket of Africa. Rather demonstrates my point that the main problem in the world is bad government., methinks
Zimbabwe has had to use the (😱evil 👹) $US as its official currency for many years which means it has absolutely no control over its own affairs.
As an anarchist conservative I’m all in favour of reducing the role of any government to the barest minimum but fear that covid/lockdown has resulted in enormous increases in those powers worldwide.
Without much legislation they have reduced their populations to a servile willingness to obey no matter how ludicrous or futile their demands.
It occurs to me that this was their intention all along and it’s only taken two years.
The rich and powerful have got more rich and more powerful, as they always will, given the chance. Perhaps that is why we need politics, to try and keep this in check though of course often it doesn’t work.
The rich and powerful are now beyond the reach of National Sovereignty existing in private worlds of their own but using local governments to keep the rest of us in our place without any effort on their part.
Well I’m no fan of the reign of terror, but sometimes I do wonder if there was something to be said for the storming of the Bastille. If any European population might be expected to make a go of standing up to the tyranny, maybe it will be the French.
The Bolsheviks and Pol Pot both had a go at starting again from scratch: “Year Zero”.
It doesn’t seem to end well.
I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the French. They have a reputation of protesting at anything and everything in large numbers but have generally been as supine as everyone else over Covid restrictions. Yes, there has been token demos as in other countries including here in the U.K. but not what I expected from our Gallic neighbours.
Karen,
As you are our star commentator, I was wondering if you are keeping up with the Canadian Truckers Convoy to Ottawa?
It is not surprising that it gets no mention on our News Section above, as the lying media are doing their best to ignore/censor the story?
As usual Sundance over at The Conservativetreehouse is doing a great job on it.
It gives me great hope that our downtrodden brothers are finally reacting to the dictatorships. Sadly there is no viable opposition party in Canada (Britain, Ireland Germany – add your favourite country!)
I commented here at DS on a YouTube link about the Canadian truckers just to say I’m surprised that a little twirp like Justin Trudeau could stand up to such a fine display of Canadian manhood and womanhood.
Apart from that I know no more.
I’m in hospital at the moment with a BBC news channel on mute 14 hours a day but, unsurprisingly, it is not featured there.
Thank you Karen,
Hmm, they can just rob all savers with high inflation instead. Unless they’re on the gold standard or some such. I’m fed up of savings and income being robbed (two income taxes (and one of them going up) – I ask you!).
When Jacindas foolish/brave policy of Zerov Covid comes crashing down, the results on NZ 3/4 year mortality will be the opposite of what occured in the UK (attached Will Jones, DS, 25/1/22) with low hanging fruit still waiting to be harvested yet with no promise of protection from vaxxes.
This will be presented as an unexpected disaster when it has been entirely predictable all along.
What Wills graphic also demonstrates is that whatever differences in UK lockdown restrictions were in place it made very little difference in the medium to long term so they might as well have not bothered.
As many little old ladies said before, during and after Lockdown
“they might as well let ot run it’s course deary, if it’s gonna get ya it’s gonna get Ya, f*ck all we can do about it”
A pity the little old ladies weren’t asked. Just used as propaganda – “granny killers”, when the government has done more harm to old ladies than anyone these past two years.
…and the government is blaming the children…
Do let me know when they blame themselves. That will be the day…
‘We were fools to follow the rules’? No, you were monsters
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/we-were-fools-to-follow-the-rules-no-you-were-monsters/
Laura Perrins
The big danger is that this fake normal stays
Join the friendly resistance before it’s too late
now is not the time to give up
Thursday 27th January 5pm
Silent lighted walk behind one simple sign
“No More Lockdown”
Bring torches, candles and other lights
meet Broad Street (outside John Lewis,
opposite Queen Victoria St),
Reading RG1 2BB
Stand in the Park Sundays 10am make friends, ignore the madness & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens Cockpit Path car park Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Henley Mills Meadows (at the bandstand) Henley-on-Thames RG9 1DS
Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
People who followed these inhuman rules, and actually thought it was fine and dandy to keep a sobbing husband away from his dying wife? One has to question their humanity.
I fear it has become all too obvious that they have no intention of going back to normal.
“Most [U.S. ‘covid’] deaths are in the most ‘vaccinated’ states”.
I wonder if the BBC reported that bit? Or said one single thing about the “unvaccinated” Amish? (No I don’t have any good links on them, any info would be appreciated).
BBC reportimg/who cares about Partygate?
In hospital at the moment with a TV in sight showing a 24/7 BBC news channel (volume at zero).
Each time I glance up it shows another BBC mouth, deadly serious expression, expressing grave concerns about Partygate (subtitles). Same old stuff, hour after hour except just once when the subtitle read
“Rumours are emerging of photographs showing the PM (this bit word for word)
in close proximity to bottles of alcohol”
I only noticed it the once, perhaps it was a false rumour masquerading as a proper one.
I must admit to being in close proximity to bottles of alcohol (very Dad’s Army, the whole thing).
At a garage I go to, they used to provide a tv and remote control. Now though, there is no remote control, just a rolling news channel (the BBC I think). I suppose they got tired of people mucking about with the tv. I wonder how many people are forced to watch this stuff, with no good democratic input (though I suppose people can complain to the garage if they really want to, or indeed the hospital Still, I bet not many hospitals show GB News or Bitchute)..
Indeed, that’s why I spend my waking hospital hours on my Android, should get something with a larger screen I suppose.
The only wafting media sound I hear is cricket commentary which I still find quite relaxing; means everyone else must have the BBC volume switched off too.
“I’d happily be treated by an unjabbed nurse”.
I’d rather be treated by an unjabbed nurse. I don’t want spike protein shed or someone who’s immunity is shot to pieces (and apparently actually more likely to contract herpes like in that comedian’s piece last year).
Not that I’m likely to need treatment, I’m healthy. I resent being expected to put myself at risk and sign up to a new normal indefinitely at a cost to the ewconomy of many billions because of others having health problems. You could have gold plated targeted protection for a fraction of the price.
I’d definitely prefer to be treated by an unvaxxed doctor.
Much higher level of general and medical intelligence and likely also more social competence than any vaxxed one.
Ditto!
“Fauci knrew masks didn’t work”?
Is that crook in jail yet? One day maybe his time will come. (The Israelis were good at some things…)
Got logged out again Hugh so response by way of saved attached since DS will be moving onto topics new within the hour.
Sadly the Israelis can no longer be relied upon, I still remember listening to what became known as “Raid on Entebbe” underneath the bedclothes c/o Radio Luxembourg.
Hugh
Dr Mengele Fauchi, is now boasting about injecting babies 6 months to 2 here old with his potions.
Again story at The Conservativetreehouse.
“Don’t have kids because of climate change”.
And if that doesn’t work for the eugenicists, manufacture a crisis that will kill millions in the third world and damage fertility.
I’ll say it again, population increase is a good thing, there’s loads of resources out there, the real demographic crisis is that of an ageing population (which would be far worse still if it wasn’t for big families). Of all the things to be afraid of, babies is the daftest I ever heard.
BBC Radio 4 have been subtlety encouraging smaller families to save the planet for some years now.
The came unstuck on Womans Hour when the invited high priestess turned out to have four sproggs herself.
Their “small families” message is only targeted at certain demographics, though.
“Kate Clanchy falls foul of woke sensibilities”.
What exactly do you have to do these days anyway not to fall foul of these muppets?
It reminds me of the German “Democratic” Republic. You can have your car any colour so long as it’s red (at least until cars fall foul of “woke”).
“Michael Deacon in the Telegraph says a threat to punish NHS staff will end up punishing patients as well.”
No proof of this whatsoever, of course.
I conclude, therefore, that Michael Deacon is a complete tosser.
That is all, thank you.
Aren’t they all? Especially those Times muppets.
“The UK has turned into East Germany”. (Mark Steyn, GB News).
Thank you very much woke mob, government scum, msm, big pharma, CCP et al.
Incidentally, he interviewed someone who had a birthday party with two friends in his garden in March 2021 and ended up being hit with a £200 fine under government guidance. It just so happens I marked my birthday around that time with 20 odd people, and do you know what? We jolly well had a cake! Fortunately it was during an educational support group meeting (formerly a prayer group). So that was alright!
As certain Tory MPs are saying,
“since ‘most household’ will have broken lockdown restrictions in one way or another, however innocently, are they morally entitled to criticize the bozo for doing likewise?”
Aside from not caring about Partygate, yes they are because
1. They are not the Prime Minister
2. They weren’t on telly urging people to obey the rules
3. They didn’t get caught or snitched on
I trust your friend did not pay his fine because the CPS are still not prosecuting what they know to be unsatisfactory Covid laws.
Oh it was friends of the person being interviewed by Steyn, not my frinds. I think they paid the fine.
Forests of mechanical trees could be built to ‘soak up carbon dioxide’ and help stave off climate change, scientists claim
For fucks sake!
Well, that sounds really safe!
As I say above, rich man’s pastime. When the global economy crashes, I suspect people will have bigger fish to fry. What decadent times we live in.
I do! If people think bozo is the best leader we have in this country, the country is royally fucked. Stop protecting the lying deceitful opportunist clown.
Now that I really relate too, unlike the BS by Odious Torygraph Christine odious;
Pinkfloyd comes to mind. On the subject of kids;
Just don’t have 4 or 5 kids, which takes us right back to covid, historically people had large families, because infant mortality was high from disease (and birth control hadn’t been invented). Thanks primarily to improved nutrition, sanitation, hygiene, housing etc… Infant mortality has vastly decreased. Ironically, the ecological function of pathogens is population control, removing old, sick & young so lockdowns & the concept of vaccines (which I’m not against in theory) are a crime against nature & natural process.
Yes, some people in the 1930’s (some sort of socialists, I understand) used to say that preserving the weakest members of society was so very very wrong, a point of view famously lampooned in Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” with its quip about reducing “the surplus population”, the bleak utilitarian view. Of course, eugenicists are major drivers of the current shambles.
Don’t have 4 or 5 kids, have 7 or more kids if you can. Let’s have some facts. It would be technically possible to house (and indeed feed) seven billion people in an area equivalent to the size of the Isle Of Skye. I’ve done the calculations. And you would still have all the rest of the world, and all the rest of the solar system, and indeed neighbouring solar systems which may reasonably be expected to become reachable over the next several hundred years. In any case, if current trends continue, the global population would peak (and indeed start to decrease) this century at around ten billion people. And the demographic crisis of an ageing population would be far worse if it wasn’t for people who have 4 or more kids. I reiterate, it is absurd to be afraid of babies. Babies are not a virus (as Prince Philip might have had them) Being afraid of babies is more irrational than being afraid of a seasonal virus.
As for (artificial) birth control, even if there was a case for frustrating fecundity (which there isn’t except in very exceptional circumstances) artificial birth control is not the answer, with its nasty chemicals damaging the aquatic environment, its incentivisation of risky forms of behaviour which inevitably lead to abuses of women and undermining of stable family life to the huge detriment of the working classes.
I’m afraid i’m going to have to disagree with you here.
Natural processes have evolved over millions of years to maintain a competitive balance, there are many misconceptions of how nature works eg. predators control the populations of prey, which in fact in most cases is the exact opposite, the fewer prey animals there are the less, predators have to eat & are unable to raise young! The laws of nature are the laws of nature, politics & feelings don’t come into it.
I have no doubt in my mind, this planet can feed & house trillions of humans and a few dozen domesticated species. But that’s all. There will be no nature, no forests, no mountains not rivers no birds no bees, just human tech.
Living in a crowded ghetto eating GMO grains & insect meal, having your weekly jab to protect you from the numerous diseases, due to overcrowded conditions, is not how I wish to live. And a billion people on this little island will mean most of us living in high rise blocks in smog filled cities, you’re welcome to that, if that’s your thing.
The use of artificial chemicals will only increase as the population grows, pollution of the oceans only getting worse with the demand for high yield crops & agricultural run off. Advising people to breed like rabbits with unfettered offspring has consequences, the risk of more liberals & woke advocates for one, so be careful what you wish for!
The Japanese already make the best of living in a crowded ghetto (to say nothing of the “coffin” apartments of Hong Kong). And they eat raw fish and have a good social life, sensible people that they are. Look, if the area of Britain and Ireland was divided equally between the total population, a family of five could have acres of land. And Britain and Ireland is a relatively tiny amount of the world’s area. And plenty of people would not be bothered about having acres of land anyway, even if it was available. There would still be loads of the world to play with even if every family in the world currently had their quarter acre. With good government, there would not be any problem for hundreds of years (and probably thousands of years) even with relatively high population growth. Who’s afraid of the big bad baby?
The Isle of Skye thing is based on 150 stories. But we would still have all the rest of the world to play with. And long before we got crowded, it would likely become feasible to inhabit places outside of Earth as I say. That’s what happens when you have a rising population, increasing knowledge, innovation and prosperity. i note that the current tyranny has occurred in a world with a stagnating population and a traumatised population (which I would argue is down to measures such as artificial birth control).
Basalt and Dundee city council’s green waste allowed Straloch farm, near Enochdhu to grow fantastic crops of food in unpromising barren land near Pitlochry. I can’t find anything om it on the Internet, but trust me, the story is there, February 18, 2006, Telegraph Weekend, page 2, article by Graham Harvey. Combine this with modern hydroponic farming techniques and you could feed loads of people without any chemical muck. Stuff big pharma, stuff big food, stuff eugenics, we would be fine if we were just let alone to feed and heal ourselves, and no risk of shortage or cramping our style for centuries to come, I guarantee you.
Nah, I’m sorry that’s just La La Land, I’ve lived in the highlands for over 30 years, I fucking hate the place, I yearn for the comfortable climate of southern England! But the over crowding & cost of living just makes it unfeasible. The highlands are a cold, damp, windy, depressing place but perversely the cost of living & therefore quality of life are better. That’s changed over the last 10 years, with rent seekers following people looking for a slower way of life, the highlands is now catching up with the rest of the world, the reason I moved here was because of its backward nature it was like the 70’s back in the 90s, I liked that.
I’ve worked close to Pitlochry for several years & lived on farms for most of my adult life, I can tell you Scotland isn’t a productive climate for growing crops or livestock, the seasons are short & weather predictably unpredictable.
With population comes consequences, more poverty & with it a deteriorating standard of living. There will be a small growth in entitled elite getting even fatter on Ai & automation. Trust me, you’ll be eating gruel every meal. Japan is an overpopulated little island that has survived on plundering the oceans, but that can’t go on forever, the more mouths to feed the less there is to eat, and with chemical pollution & over harvesting the oceans are decaying fast. There is no getting away from a new diet of GMO & insect meal.
I guarantee you 10-11 billion humans is almost doubling the current population, with it comes double the pollution, double the poverty, double the competition & double the conflict. The fantasy of a good governance is laughable. I’m not afraid of population growth, climate change or even mass extinction. I won’t be here, I’ll be dead. But I feel sad for those left behind, never having known the natural world!
The ‘6th Global Mass Extinction already happening’ is getting a good airing from the usual suspects.
Following up the rear “Homo Sapiens did not grow bigger brains because they started eating meat” which is clearly intended to bolster the vegan agenda.
Its an undeniable fact, caused entirely by natural processes, ecological competition between species (humans v other animals) & so far humans are winning (it won’t last forever) and entirely natural climate change (not AGW) but the 6th mass extinction is a fact backed up by volumes of data.
Bear in mind extinction is part of evolution, every living organism has earned the right to go extinct.
That’s why I remembered the thing about Straloch farm, because they were getting noteworthy results despite the unpromising environment. If you control the environment, make your own soil (and as I understand it, basalt is just what comes out of volcanoes – all the lava under the Earth’s surface is presumably mineral rich), use polytunnels, artificial light, it doesn’t matter where you are. People have even grown things in space, I understand. It might be more trouble than it’s worth under current conditions, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done if necessary.
If some people insist on having dozens of pairs of shoes, lots of foreign holidays, an unhealthy diet that uses up a lot of land, and many other things besides, obviously that will make an impact on the environment. But lots of these things could be reduced, so there is no need for increased population to lead to increased degradation of the environment. In fact, some of the fast growing populations in places like Africa have a relatively low impact on the environment.
As for bad government, that can happen with a declining or low population too, as well as the social and economic problems caused by an ageing population.
Have you ever been to Sky in winter? Much of the planet is even more uninhabitable. It may be all nice and cosy to think living in a desert, the Arctic or arid wastelands is fun, but I promise you Dubai, UAE can’t support millions of people, let alone billions like India and oh how India has a reckoning coming, one of the first places the eugenicists will practice their evil ideology I suspect.
Of course they can. They have serious levels of water desalination there, that’s how they survive. Thousands of years ago, people made gardens in the desert through irrigation pipes from distant hills. When we get our act together, all those currently uninhabitable places will be perfectly habitable. And in any case, as I have indicated, there is plenty of habitable land even by traditional standards, for our current global population. If we have a problem, it will be because of the elites robbing us. It is China that has a reckoning coming (unless we keep giving them things on a plate – or rather sleepy Joe does) with their demographic crisis. The current disaster, and those to come will most likely be as a result of the aging population.
There’s this thing called physics that tends to spoil the orgy of self gratification in the middle east, there’s only one reason places like the UAE can exist, that’s oil, I’m not talking CO2 here I’m talking the simple fact of finite supply. UAE will die when the oil runs dry.
All those natural aquifers (and rivers) feeding those irrigation systems have dried up, the waters gone, water is the most precious resource on the planet. No country can afford the energy required to desalinate seawater to grow crops its just infeasible, but even if it were possible, I wouldn’t want to live in a desert.
You are quite welcome to go live in an inhospitable arid cold lifeless desert. I wish everyone would. But I promise you that’s not the plan of the entitled, parasitic elite. The future is megacities & high rises, & not another species to be seen. I’d rather slit my wrists.
Chinas problem is easy to solve, just start a war and sacrifice half the population. This ageing population thing is such a red herring, I can respect breeding to maintain your own genes, but that thought isn’t allowed in the new neoliberal woke state. The future is a bleak place of UBI, megacities, synthetic food & technocracy. Technology will solve the problem of an ageing population.
The Romans had a number of vital trading posts along the shores of the Red Sea upon which the luxury aspects of their Empire depended, and the associated tax revenues.
Each of them was wholly dependent upon desalination plants which sustained them for hundreds of years.
What was Roman civilization run on? Slavery.
Have you not noticed something about the Roman Empire lately?
Every Civilisation was run on slavery to a greater or lesser degree until ours started put an end to it because slavery stifles innovation and is inimical to capitalism which has since brought the most good to more people than could possibly have been imagined.
It may, but I think that remains to be proved. And by the same token, technology (which comes from a vibrant growing population) can solve problems posed by population growt. There was huge population growth in the 20th century. The standard of living increased. That is the bottom line. There are areas of the world where desertification is being reversed, and I suggest that the abolition of deserts is a feasible long term goal, ironically made easier by increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Water is abundant, even fresh water if it is distributed properly, There was a story a few years back about an underground sea being discovered under Africa. In the book Life of Pi, the lad marooned in the boat survived on sea water distilled by solar sills. I have faith in human ingenuity to find a way. The
Places can go up as well go down.
North Africa was the bread basket of the Roman Empire since conquest of Carthage. Libya, ‘Algeria’ and Tunisia were the source of all the bread for Romes circuses (and most of the animals for slaughter).
Economically the southern shores of the Mediterranean were equally valuable as the north (hence Middle Sea). Post incorporation Egypt provided 25% of all tax revenues for the entire Empire.
The conquest of North Africa first by the Vandals and then more permanently by the Arabs (7th C.) is what really meant the end of classical civilisation, not the ousting of the Western Emperors a couple of centuries earlier, because those later people were not interested in agriculture or trade preferring military domination and piracy.
And what has been North Africa since? Or perhaps it was global warming turned it into a dusty sandy shit-hole made barely sustainable by western demands for oil and holiday destinations.
What was the worlds population estimate during the Roman era?
Africa also had a cycle of famine, that controlled their populations.
Roman Empire population maxed at about 40 million. My interest in North Africa is in its productive capacity rather than population.
A lot of people were killed in Pompeii by the Vesuvius eruption. They must have known though that volcanoes could be dangerous and yet still lived there. The point is, a lot of these disasters happened because of greed, imprudence, poor planning, wars and so on. The Ethiopia starvation of the 1980’s was a result of the civil war, not because resources weren’t available for them. Nobody would die from bad harvests if resources were shared sensibly. One of my big worries about the current shambles is it will result in more wars, and therefore more of these sorts of tragedy.
Carthage, that’s the place I was trying to remember. The hill the city was built on raised to the ground and sewn with salt. Point is, man has almost limitless capacity to alter their environment and topography. Of course, this can be a great threat, but it is also what allows man to adapt to population increases and changing availability of resources. Yes, some things may change with a bigger world population, but life won’t necessarily be worse. Global population increased about 6 fold in a hundred years, but now we are supposed to be afraid of a less than doubling of global population? I don’t buy it, personally.
Holidays in former lochside farm labourers cottages in a little place called Onich just west of Glen Coe for 10 successive years just before Easter. That meant the weather could be 6 or more weeks different year on year.
Day trips to Skye via Malaige, on a nice day, otherwise up in the hills or on the lash in Fort William.
Living it is a whole different game than a holiday.
Dur.
Hugh,
The British (overseas development mob I think) have been paying bounties to Indian clinics for years to steralise men and women
This gave me a laugh
Spotify Removing Neil Young’s Music After Tantrum Over Joe Rogan ‘Misinformation’
‘old man’, get on your camel.
Eric Clapton has rejoined the fight, jumping in on Joe’s side.
Not much actually information thus far excerpt the usual Social Media outrage on both sides.
Here we go
“Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons and John Lewis will still ask customers to wear masks”. Ok, I will stay away from those places.
Those companies compete with each other using margins of a very few percent points.
If all Sceptics, plus freedom of choicers, boycotted them they would soon feel it though best to let their marketing departments know why.
They can ask all they like😄
Hooray hooray !! It’s mask-free day!! I expect it’s mask-free day every day for most people on here. Can we have some reports later on the response to this around the country? Some wally on Talk Radio just said he’ll continue to wear one to be ‘polite’.
I’ve never worn one but to be perfectly honest when they said it ends on Thursday I assumed they meant last Thursday! Hadn’t even noticed 😂
On the day after the pig dictator’s announcement, mask wearing on trains in my part of the Midlands dropped from around 90% to below 50% – good little sheep.
Met a very good, old friend yesterday. When we met her at the station she was wearing a mask…Later, when we went back to the station with her, to get her train home, she did NOT wear a mask!
What’s a mask?
So people who have had covid are getting ‘reinfected’ with Omicron. Several points to make: we must remember that Omicron is a cold. So what, people are getting a cold – really when has this been a problem; we are using a test that was never designed as a diagnostic and has many false positives. Also it is very important to know how many have been vaccinated because if it’s the majority then is this original antigenic sin? Is this what we were warned about and which since has, conveniently, disappeared from the media – the possibility that the vaccinated will never mount a full immune response to any SARS Cov-2 variant because their immune systems have been ‘trained’ to respond to such a narrow target, i.e. the Wuhan spike protein. What’s the solution by the authorities – get boosted of course. They sound like broken records!
what that article really says is that idiots who keep testing themselves several times per week have managed to get 2 (false?) positive tests over 2 years.
Unlikely that those who have been vaccinated won’t be able to mount an immune response to a different variant due to their immune system being trained to only recognise only a small target.
Yes the different vaccines may create memory T and B cells, but those are the final stage of the immune response. If there’s a new variant that is presenting even slightly different antigen proteins then it is the innate system that will respond, producing symptoms of a “cold”. This will happen in everyone irrespective of previous infection or vaccination status.
There are a multitude of viruses that cause a cold, including other coronaviruses.
Why do we get colds, after all we’ve been exposed to these viruses year on year and should have some immune memory?
The answer is that the innate immune system has no memory and reacts exactly the same way on the 1001st encounter with a virus as it did on the first encounter. The symptoms of innate response is raised temperature, cough, snotty nose and other inflammation. As the innate system is handling the infection effectively then the adaptive response will be somewhat muted and memory lymphocytes are unlikely to be generated.
Disease is not just the result of an infection but also the response from the immune system to the infection. Acute respiratory distress syndrome is due to the inflammatory response. Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia is the result of an overreaction of the immune system. Sepsis and septicaemia are the extreme example of this.
Why is there no link in the roundup to the canadian truckers revolt, it’s huge and apparently even the Amish joined in with their horses and carts, which considering the temperatures over there is pretty amazing.
It’s the largest fight back against mandated jabs and yet nothing here?
Catee
See my post to Karen above.
Just go over to the Conservativetreehouse.com for great coverage.
Looks like Brendan O’Neill has been mining the DS comments section for his latest cutting edge commentary.
As one of the sharper observers in the media it’s only taken him a couple of weeks to catch up with what numerous commentators on here were pointing out.
Most of the media seem to be lagging by about 20 months.
if I get caught for speeding I will use the BoJo defence – Everyone has done it from time to time, the prime minister Probably did it when he was a motoring journalist and no one told me that it is against the law so hey officer you can shove the fine up your backside. If that does not work then I will tell him that I will commission an enquiry to find out if I was speeding.
News from Europe.
In France Nine million French people could lose their vaccination pass on February 15 because they have not yet taken up the offer of a booster.
News in French.
Denmark is lifting all national restrictions currently in force, such as the use of a health pass, the wearing of a mask or the early closing of bars and restaurants. Despite that hospitalizations on the rise.News in English.
One last one the scares in Spain keep coming. Screen shot from twatter.
Translates as person who is in their nineties who had been infected with covid-19 dies in Monforte (a town in Spain)
Bob Seely, 2 years to do nothing but look at the numbers and still the blithering idiot manages to come out with
despite claiming
Little wonder we’re in the mess we’re in with this sort of genius in control.
When the whole partygate thing took off, one or two of us commented here that this was a distraction and we wondered from what. I’ve been on the look out, what do they want us not looking at? Well, a friend sent me details of THE HUMAN RIGHTS REFORM ACT which started its passage through parliament just before Christmas. Consultation is underway and the deadline for comments is 8 March. If it goes through, choice about vaccines during a pandemic might not be an option.
Human Rights Act Reform: A Modern Bill of Rights – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
I’ve never read anything by Kate Clanchy, but I’m happy to write to her spineless publishers and tell them why I’ll never again buy any of their books.
The supermarkets who ask us to continue wearing masks.
These creeps are boiling my blood!
Let’s be clear, we are cattle as far as they are concerned. Their only care for our welfare, is related specifically to their desire that we are able to make it to the milking sheds.
This is just another (free) opportunity for them to out-do their competitors in their ‘we care more / we love you more’ arms-race.
I can’t stand this bullshit. ‘We are invading X because we are GOOD, and we LOVE you’ (nothing to do with strategic/economic interests); ‘We value and care about our customers/citizens’ …
I want to be sick. Just fucking tell it as it is – it would be infinitely less sick-inducing.
A trip to my South London/Surrey shopping centre today reveals plenty of people still in masks and face-socks of all kinds, but not as many as in previous days.
TFL’s London Trams are running a now out-of-date announcement, claiming you can be fined for not wearing a face covering. You can bet they won’t be in a hurry to update this, dropping the fine part. Masked about 60%.
Plenty of shops/banks etc still carrying wear a mask signs, but I went in everywhere and what’s clear is there is no enforcement of this any more. Nobody is interested, except I suppose Sadiq Khan. In time I expect masks to drop off, but it’s gonna take a while.
A guy about 30 was accosted by security in Sainsbury’s, he had about a dozen Lucozade bottles hidden in his coat- fear not, he had a mask on. They gave him the option of giving up his stash and walking away with no police being called. Only yesterday they could call the police if you didn’t wear a mask.
I reckon about 65% of people still shopping in places like M&S/Waitrose etc in face masks.
Olympic champion, 51, dies from Covid-19 after anti-vax posts
He was recorded as an “anti-vaxer” his death was recorded as another covid death statistic.
but… “According to newspaper Blikk, he had recently been vaccinated in order to continue working as a gymnastics coach.”
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/szilveszter-csollany-olympic-champion-dies-covid-19-234846677.html?guccounter=1
How many more were there in similar circumstances?
No swears, incitement to violence or extreme rudeness. Got it. In fact, I swear by it…
A question. Is “nigger” a swear word? I have children’s books (and family films) with the word in. Now, however, I understand its use is very controversial (at least by certain demographics). But does it count as swearing? Or would it be banned anyway as “very rude” (and regardless o context)?
I guess I’ll find out if I get banned…